While I was writing my book, an unexpectedly enjoyable thing happened; I discovered that finding out what I completely and totally hated (fruit in kraut? Pretty much never for me, thanks) was actually fun! I tested many hundreds of recipes to get to the final recipes that are in Ferment Your Vegetables and most of them didn’t make it into the book.

There are a lot of reasons certain recipes didn’t make the cut. Some were too similar to others that were better. Some I knew I needed to test and tweak more and there simply wasn’t time. A very few, falling into a distinguished category, were just truly gross. All of those, I retested several times before giving up, because I thought something must have actually gone wrong in fermentation. As it turned out, nope. They were just epic recipe fails.

Whether or not the final product of fermentation is tasty can be subjective. So maybe you’ve tried something similar to one of the below and loved it (you’ll even find some hedging in what I wrote about these bad guys!). If so, that’s awesome. We probably can’t be friends and I’d like to not eat dinner at your house one day, but still, to each her own. For the rest of you, I thought you might enjoy sharing in the strange pleasure that can only come from a truly spectacular recipe failure.

Here are 5 recipes that never made it to the tasters or recipe testers:

Kale-chi – (Notes on the recipe: “What’s new bitterness, woah-oh-oh-oh-oh?”) I’ve fermented kale before and it’s fine when it ferments with friends, but on its own, it can get crazy bitter. I thought maybe, just maybe, kimchi fixins would temper the bitterness. Then I thought if I found the right number of days to ferment, the bitterness might not be an issue at all. Turns out, nope. The only thing that tasted kinda good was the unfermented version, and Phickle doesn’t not ferment fermentable things. (Come on now).

Turns out, even kimchi-fying kale doesn’t make it a good ferment in my book.

Garlic Scape Pickles – (Notes on the recipe: Jake-“Never serve these to anyone.” Me-“Flavor amazing. Texture, string-like and terrifying.”) I wanted so badly for this to work. Mostly because I had what I thought was a stunning idea for the photo. Yes, yes, mock if you will, but I was really excited about how beautiful these would look wrapped in the jar when a pro photog got her hands on it.

Since the photo was so important to me, I only tested this recipe with whole scapes, which I just learned was at least partially responsible for their horrible texture. Carly and Dave over at Food & Ferments just released a limited edition garlic scape pickle that is off the charts awesome. Their method—smaller pieces, longer fermentation—makes for a killer pickle. So when the next scape season rolls around, make sure to chop first and go long on fermentation and you’ll be a happy, stinky camper. Just goes to show that a little flexibility can go a long way in fermentation.

The reason I have these photos? I wanted the photog to see how they looked beautifully wrapped in the jar. Too bad the texture was the worst and these should never be eaten by anyone. Ever.

Guaca-kraut – (Notes on the recipe: “When the avocado amount is small enough to avoid the rancid smell/flavor, you can no longer really name this anything related to guac.”) Guacamole is my fat of choice. I could honestly, easily eat a bowl of it or a salted avocado every day and still crave more.

I’ve had mixed results incorporating fats into kraut in the past. They tend to go rancid quickly and make for some pretty off smells. I was determined, though, to get the ratio right so that it would work as a thing that could sit in my fridge for a good long while and serve as a tasty, protbiotic guac substitute when I didn’t have the time to whip up a batch. My determination did not pay off. Anything other than the negligible addition of avocado led to gross texture, unpleasant colors and rancid flavors.

Mustard Seed Carrot Kvass – (Notes on the recipe: “Farts. Just farts. Why is this farts?”) If you checked out the table of contents on my book launch day post, you may have noticed that there’s a whole chapter on vegetable kvass. I spent a lot of bandwidth testing kvass recipes. I developed some herb kvasses that I really loved, and I thought, hey, why not a spice kvass? I tried a couple that were okay but needed more tweaking, but I thought a mustard seed kvass (mustard seeds are great additions to krauts and pickles!) with a little carrot would work out wonderfully. I was wrong. It wasn’t wonderful. It was traumatic.

Sometimes when the smell is off in a veg ferment, it may just need a couple more days of fermentation, or maybe a little time in the fridge before it’s ready. Sometimes the smell isn’t great (I’m looking at you, pickled Brussels sprouts), but the taste is. In this case, the smell and the taste were both horrifically farty. I regret all four sips I took before this went down the drain.

I love mustard in SO many ferments. Mustard seed kvass was a big party pooper, however.

Piña Colada Kraut – (Notes on the recipe: “NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!) I saved the worst for last. In the sauerkraut chapter of my book, there are several recipes that I affectionately, and privately refer to as my “weirdo krauts.” If you’ve got the book, these include favorites like Sauerkraut Satay (page 90) and Mediterranean Kraut (page 87). The weirdo krauts in general are some of my very favorite recipes in the book, and tasters and testers have strongly agreed with me, so it’s not like I regret the experiments. Some of these attempts, however, were nearly as successful as a Trump combover.

The worst of the lot was the Piña Colada Kraut. Every bite—every thing—was wrong with this kraut. I tried with a lot of different kinds of coconut (fresh, dried, shredded, sweetened, unsweetened, milk, water, etc) and the results either tasted not at all like coconut, had a really not good (slimy) texture or had a super oxidized, unpleasant flavor. The pineapple experiments were worse: dried, candied, fresh; it didn’t matter. All efforts produced a sulfuric, nose-destroying funk that brought tears to my eyes. This was definitely the worst fermentation experiment I’ve ever done, and that’s coming from the person who has grown some pretty impressive moldscapes in recent times.

The absolute worst vegetable ferment I’ve ever made is Piña Colada Kraut. There isn’t enough “nope” in the world for this one.

I promise, I’m not telling you not to try this at home. Although these were some of the worst things I’ve ever tasted, I don’t regret my efforts for a minute. The spirit of fermentation (and the spirit of my book) is about finding what works for you, and quite literally, playing with your food. Sometimes spectacular failure is the most fun you can have in the kitchen.

What is a pickle?

A pickle, at its most broad and basic, is just a vegetable that has been made sour. Pickling refers to the act of souring (or acidifying) something (usually vegetables, but sometimes fruits, eggs and even meats). You can pickle these things in a variety of ways, which is why people sometimes get confused about the differences between canning and fermentation. The way a pickle is acidified is what decides whether it’s a fermented pickle or a vinegar pickle. Vinegar pickling is the most common way to make pickles today. Vinegar can be used to make quick pickles (fridge pickles) or canned pickles. Neither of these methods is fermenting. In fact, canned pickles are the opposite of fermented pickles in many ways.

See how these pickles from Michigan’s The Brinery are on ice? That’s because they’re fermented, alive and in need of chilling to slow fermentation.

But all pickles are fermented and probiotic, right?

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the truth is that they are not. Most pickles sold in the US today are canned, not fermented, and therefore they are not probiotic. Only fermented pickles are probiotic. Pickles made with vinegar are not probiotic.

Pickled parsnips are pretty.

So canned pickles are different from fermented pickles?

Yes. Canning is the process of killing all bacteria, bad and good, through sterilization. It involves using added acid (vinegar) and heat to kill all possible microorganisms.

Fermented pickling is the opposite. It’s the process of cultivating bacteria. Here’s a basic primer on pickling vegetables via fermentation:

All vegetable fermentation is kind of the process of championing “good” bacterial strains the epic battle of good vs. evil. In other words, fermentation is all about cultivating the right bacteria in a grand bacterial competition, and our job as fermenters is to give the good bacteria an advantage over their competitors. We do that by providing them with a relatively anaerobic (airless) environment and the right temperature. Chopping vegetables makes it easier for the bacteria to access the vegetable’s natural sugars. Salt is also helpful, since the bad guys tend to be halophobic (salt-fearing) and the good, probiotic, lactic acid bacteria we want to thrive don’t mind salt too much, even when it’s there in fairly heavy concentrations (most of the literature I’ve read says that you’ll still have some strains of living LAB at a salt concentration of 8%, which, btw, is way too salty to eat).

Once we’ve created the right conditions, the lactic acid bacteria wallop their (pathogenic bacteria) competition as they go to work. Work, for them, is converting the sugars naturally present in the vegetables into a whole host of things including vitamins, enzymes, alcohol, CO2 and, perhaps most importantly, lactic acid. It’s the lactic acid that acidifies the vegetables (yum), making an environment that is unsuitable for bad bacteria (like the bacteria that makes the botulism toxin) and other bad guys.

You’d have to mess up pretty badly to take the advantage away from lactic acid bacteria. In recorded history, no one has ever suffered a food-borne illness from eating fermented vegetables. This can’t be said of canned, raw or even cooked vegetables. The acids created in the fermentation process make fermented vegetables incredibly safe to eat.

Pickles come in all shapes, sizes and vegetable varieties.

What are the advantages of fermented pickles?

They have lots o’ health benefits, many mentioned above, that are not shared by vinegar pickles.

They are safer. As mentioned above, there has never been a recorded case of foodborne illness related to fermented vegetables. Bacterial competition works way better than anything devised by man, and cultivating lactic acid bacteria has so far proven to be a more effective safety precaution than sterilization has.

Their flavor is complex and amazing. Ever wonder why those kosher deli pickles taste so much better than the regular ol’ jarred versions that sit on the grocery store shelves? It’s all about that fermentation. There are a wide array of complex flavors in fermented pickles that distilled vinegar, even with delicious seasonings, just can’t mimic or beat!

They are easy to make. Sandor Katz‘ recipe for fermented vegetables: Chop. Salt. Pack. Leave it to him to lay it out so simply and clearly. Active time for making fermented vegetables is negligible (I make them while I’m making dinner). The microbes do all the work, so you don’t have to.

No hot stove. Before I fermented, I canned (and I still make the occasional canned jam or jelly and see the value in canning other things). What killed me in the summer, though, was standing over a hot stove for hours while the jars got sterilized and then filled with hot vinegar and then processed in boiling water. With fermented vegetables, there is no sterilization necessary, and hot heat is actually undesirable. It should be done at room temp, which makes my summer days much less sweaty.

Cucumber pickles can be trickier to make than other pickles, whether they’re canned or fermented.

What are the advantages of canned pickles?

Canned pickles are shelf stable. That means that they will stay on the shelf for a long period of time without changing or deteriorating. If you have a small family and a farm or a large garden, if you’restocking up your bunker, if you have a very long winter and limited cold storage (aka no fridge or grocery store), you may want more canned goods than fermented ones because the canned goods will not change dramatically in the jar/can for many months or even years after they are processed.

You like sweet pickles, you’ll probably want to can rather than ferment. There is a way around this, but generally speaking if you’re fermenting (we’ll discuss that soon!), any sugar you add will be consumed by the fermenting bacteria and made sour. So for those sweet and sour pickles, canning will usually be a better option.

You have a long winter and limited cold storage. You may not find your fermented vegetables super appealing after several months of room temperature storage (although honestly, I am totally down with those funky mofos). Although fermentation is a preservation method, fermented vegetables are living foods that constantly change. They are usually best kept for a season, not a decade. When fermented vegetables are kept at room temperature for a long time, they can end up with a soft texture that many find unpleasant, or they can get moldy or slimy. The texture change isn’t usually a question of safety, but it is a question of deliciousness. I regularly eat fermented vegetables that are year or more old, but those typically have spent most of that time in a cooler spot, like my basement or my refrigerator.

What’s the best pickle?

The best pickle for me may not be the best pickle for you! A few of my faves? Beet, radish, celery or daikonpickles are all good choices. It’s probably obvious that I prefer the flavor and health benefits of fermented pickles (since you’re reading this on a fermentation blog) but I also see the benefits of canning if you have the knowledge and desire. Ultimately, it’s all about what meets your needs and fits your lifestyle!

Annnnnyway…I’d love to hear about your favorite pickled things/methods/experiences in the comments!

The first thing I do when I get to the farmers’ market is scan the stalls for unfamiliar vegetables. Some are similar enough to vegetables I know don’t ferment well that I feel comfortable passing them by. Then there are others, total weirdos I’ve never encountered before (or never noticed before; you know, like when you learn a new word, and suddenly the whole wold is saying that word a ton?). Those I usual try to ferment because I’ve come across some serious pickling gems that way. I don’t always share those here because I know that while most people can buy, say, bell peppers in the grocery store, lemon cucumbers can be harder to come by.

Nope, not cukes! Peeled celtuce. Don’t peel yours, though.

I kinda changed my tune on that recently, though. The nature of new-to-you ferments could well be that finding the ingredients to make them is challenging, and maybe, if you come across some of the fun veg I play with, you’ll buy it because you’ll have an idea of what to do with it. So in that spirit, look for all the normal veg ferments you see here in the summer, but please don’t leave annoyed comments about how you can’t find the vegetable in your area. If you don’t have these ingredients in your area, just think of these posts as inspiration for you to ferment the things you find in your area that I may not ever have had access to.

Today’s special vegetable is celtuce. Celtuce is my new best friend. It’s a “stem lettuce,” which is not a thing I was aware existed before I stumbled across it at the Plowshare Farms market High Street on Market on Saturdays. It was a fortuitous stumble, though, that got me all hyped on cucumber texture with hazelnut flavor. Seriously, that’s what celtuce tastes like. I fermented it with normal, basic starting recipe and I did it plain so I could see how the flavors changed during fermentation.

Slices of celtuce make some tasty, nutty pickles. Some towards the center of my celtuces (celti?) were whole-y. It didn’t affect texture at all.

Fermented Celtuce Pickles

Because I was only able to get my hands on celtuce a couple times, I haven’t tested this “recipe” as thoroughly as I usually would. It’s just a basic pickle, though, and I’ve made enough pickled vegetables of all varieties this way to know that it works. One thing I did differently between batches was to remove the peel (but include it in the jar), but include it during fermentation. It wasn’t necessary, and in fact, the outer area was the sweetest and most delectable part of the vegetable. In a few bites, the inner celtuce was a touch bitter. So leave those peels on, minus and discolored or soft parts. If you get a bit of peel that’s tough when you’re chowing down, consider it extra fiber or discard it.

INGREDIENTS

1 pound (460 g) stem celtuce

2 1/4 teaspoons (16.5 g) kosher salt

1.5 cups (355 ml) filtered water

(If you need more brine, mix 1 tablespoon salt to two cups of water, or a 4.5ish% brine)

HOW-TO

Slice celtuce into 1/4 to 1/2 inch rounds (think cucumber slices). They’ll weep a little milky liquid. It’s NBD. Place celtuce slices into a quart (1 L) jar, but be sure to leave about 1 inch (5 cm) between the top of the vegetables and the rim of the jar.

Stir salt into water until it’s pretty much dissolved. Pour liquid into jar and apply your favorite weight to celtuce. The brine should cover the vegetables, but just barely. The vegetables will release more liquid, and the natural fermenty bubbliness can cause overflow if you overfill the jar.

Cover the jar. If this is your first time at the pickling rodeo, start here for tips on weighting and covering.

I stopped the batches I made at 5 and 6 days, and I thought they were very ready. I know it’s a short ferment, but this is a lettuce stem, after all, so we can’t expect it to stay crispy forever.

Remove the weight, secure the jar lid and store in the fridge. Enjoy within a couple weeks for best texture. If you’re still liking the texture after a longer fridge time, keep on enjoying them!

Celtuce from Plowshare Farms at the High Street on Market Farmers’ Market

A ferment in a ferment for my Thanksgiving table. Oh, and a side of amazing jar weights!

First, and most importantly, I am so excited about this giveaway! I came across Sandy Der’s handmade pickle weights on a fermentation forum and I was ecstatic! Non-porous, unglazed and so very cute, I knew I had to have some. So I placed my order and the weights made their way to me very quickly. I opted for the wide-mouth variety, but I’ll be ordering some narrow ones too, since it is harder to find my style (aka stuff from around the house) weights for the narrow-mouthed jars. Now you all know that I’m a big advocate of being equipment free. But like many of you, I also have a house full of jar abrewin’ and sometimes the cloth-napkin-over-a-jar-in-a-jar look can get a bit old (also, I only have so many jam jars, cloth napkins and rubber bands). These weights allow me set a jar, lid on, ring attached loosely, and move on to the next thing. They’re also great in fidos, which have traditionally given me some issues when it comes to submersion.

I’ve been a bit obsessed with these weights since I got them. They’ve made me some great pickles.

Sandy is more than just a(n awesome) potter, though. She has a BS in Food Science and Technology from UC Davis where food microbiology was a favorite part of her coursework. She’s been a professional chef for over 20 years and she’s a certified nutrition consultant through the Bauman College holistic nutrition program. As for her fermentation experience, she’s a veteran, having made fermented foods on and off for more than a decade catching the kombucha bug in 2005 and playing around with veggie ferments for even longer.

These weights are non-porous, food safe and they make my ferments so pretty!

Like me, Sandy is a starter-free fermenter (who needs whey in their veggies?), and tends to go small batch for her family of 2. Inspiration for these gorgeous weights came when she was weighing some kimchi down with a plastic bag full of brine and realized there had to be a better way. (Luckily she happened to have a pottery studio on hand to build her own solution!)

She uses unglazed porcelain which she found was the most food safe way to go. Porcelain is the most non porous of the clay bodies out there and has no toxic materials in it to leach into the ferments. The winner of the giveaway will be able to choose between standard or wide-mouthed ball jars sizes, but Der also makes Fido and custom sizes!

Her next project sounds awesome: clay pots that you can cook with on the stove – Flameware. I am personally looking forward to getting my hands on those! Want to buy some of Sandy’s cool food-related pottery? I highly recommend it! You can get them from the Pottery by Sandy Der etsy shop!

Pickles! Foam! Each weight comes stamped with a fun phrase and veggie image.

I most recently used the weights I bought from Sandy to ferment one of the best tasting ferments you could desire: rutabaga. I’m from Michigan and rutabaga is a common addition to the Thanksgiving table there. I like mashed potatoes, but if I had to choose, my dad’s rutabaga puree would be in my belly before I even looked at the good ol’ mashed taters. If you, too, are a rutabaga lover, then making this pickle should top your priority list. It has the flavor of rutabaga with all the wonderful complexity of a vegetable ferment. Bonus: It doesn’t need to ferment very long to be amazing, so there’s still time to get yours ready before Thanksgiving!

Remove any roots or unappetizing spots from your rutabaga. Using a box grater or the grating blade on your food processor, grate your scrubbed rutabaga. If you were unable to find unwaxed, you’ll need to peel it. In my experience peeled vegetables ferment more slowly than unpeeled.

Grate your thoroughly washed, unpeeled ginger and mix it in to the rutabaga.

Pack the vegetable mixture into a 1 quart jar as you would sauerkraut, which is to say, very tightly.

Very slowly pour your brine over your rutabaga. Let the liquid seep in, then pack your rutabaga back in tight. Continue this process until you have a centimeter of brine on top of your rutabaga. You may not use the full cup of brine. Then, apply your weights. I used 2 of Sandy Der’s awesome wide-mouth jar weights.

At five days, I felt that this ferment was perfect for my Thanksgiving pickle bar. Feel free to leave it longer if you want it more acidic.